Take a Break Book Giveaway!

Tip of the Day: Here’s something new I learned this week researching for my novel—although Wiccans believe in the three-fold law and Hindus believe in the karmic law, stating that people who use black magic will get bitten in the butt for it, most cultures who believe in magic have no stated belief in a rule of return of any kind.

This week is our Take a Break Giveaway! Each of the five of us selected a book that reminds us of summer, vacations, or Spring Break. And we’re giving them away to our readers. To enter for a chance to win, all you have to do is leave a comment. That’s it: a comment for an entry. Plus you can double your chances of winning. You’ll get a second entry if you post a link to our contest on your own blog. Just leave your blog address in your comment. Each day, we’ll announce the previous day’s winner and let you know how to email us your address. We love these giveaways! They’re a blast.

The book I selected is The Au Pairs: Skinny-Dipping by Melissa de la Cruz. It’s a nice hardcover edition I won at a conference and its cover makes me want to go to the beach. I’ve heard wonderful things about Melissa de la Cruz’s writing and I’d love to read her someday. However, I am completely unable to read this book for reasons beyond my control.

You see, this novel is about girls working summer jobs in the Hamptons and partying, meeting guys, and using expensive name-brand products. And I worked a summer job in the Hamptons, too. I worked at the desk of an expensive resort, like the Suite Life. Ha ha ha ha ha.

I did not party. I did not meet celebrities. This was what my summer in the Hamptons was like:

-- Number of hours worked per week: 80
-- Number of overnight shifts per week: minimum of 3
-- Number of roaches killed in substandard employee housing: five kajillion -- Number of arguments with a celebrity’s mother who objected to her time share being rented to “Asians”: 1
-- Number of letters received by my employers threatening to sue me personally because the guests in the room next door set their alarm clock too early: 2
-- Number of bounced paychecks I received: 12
-- Number of times I heard drunken guests sing karaoke to “Summer Wind”: 517
-- Number of drunken guests who thought it was fun and not creepy to flirt with the girl at the front desk after singing “Summer Wind”: 117
-- Number of times I cashed bounced paychecks for my coworkers (who were treated like crap because they spoke Spanish and couldn’t argue with the local bank, who was in on the scam) right out of the front desk cash register, and just let the lying weasels we worked for try to fire me: after word got around, at least three times per overnight shift. Well, it was fun to be known around town for something.

I did try to go out and party with my coworkers a few times, but it always turned into us falling asleep over our drinks and speculating on who was doing coke to keep up with their triple shifts and still have a life. The kitchen help sometimes displayed ugly knife wounds self-inflicted from working without sleep. And then we compared notes on killing roaches. Good times.

Anyway, I walked out of my summer in the Hamptons with a wad of cash, a few bounced paychecks I could no longer cash out of the resort’s cash register, and a deep seated loathing of anyone connected with Hamptons’ high life. In fact, just hearing about “summer in the Hamptons” causes me to blurt out “they’ll be the first ones against the wall when the revolution comes!” and vow to read Karl Marx.

So therefore, I am scarred for life and unable to read The Au Pairs: Skinny-Dipping. I tried, because it looks like a great book, but it brought all those memories of capitalist exploitation flooding back. If I ever dream of returning to the Hamptons, trust me, it will be with a guillotine. Vive le revolution!

Not that my stay in the Hamptons wasn’t valuable research for my novels. Maybe not the same as Melissa de la Cruz’s, but I was able to write an extremely accurate scene where a boy kills a roach and watches its yellow guts ooze out. If you ever have any questions about roach killing, I’m your go-to girl. Or ask Paris Hilton; I hear she spent some time in the Hamptons, too.

Now leave your comments so I can enter you in my giveaway!

-- Kate, Miss Apprentice Writer